


Equilibrium

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Autism Spectrum, Coming Out, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Romantic Comedy, Science, Texting, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-08-17 09:11:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16513463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: cynassa: "If I was going to write a human!AU for Aziraphale and Crowley, Crowley would be a manic depressive and Aziraphale would be autistic. ...Crowley is a biophysics post-doc Fellow working on developing synthetic kidneys and he absolutely fucking hates his supervisor, who is a snotty Oxford grad who thinks humanity is fundamentally evil; and most of his labmates worship that asshole. In the competitive environment of being at the lab 14 hours a day, the only person he talks to that isn’t one of these people is Aziraphale, and he only knows him as ‘wrong number guy.’Aziraphale got three degrees from distance education, has a starwatching setup on his rooftop that is a beautiful miracle, and does other people’s tax and accounts freelance for money. He talks to four people on a weekly basis: the guy who collects information and sends him work; the grocery store lady who gently chatters at him but doesn’t pressure him to respond; his snake; and Crowley.”Edit: chapter 3, "Isotropic", is set during Crowley and Anathema's college days.





	1. Equilibrium

**Author's Note:**

> I write so much fluff I feel like I gotta justify putting some "being neurodivergent is hard, actually" fic out into the world but like.... being neurodivergent is hard, actually, and this is 100% a reflection of my current frustrations about it.

Aziraphale was lying flat on his back under the telescope when his phone dinged and he started. Why he continued to bring the thing up onto the roof with him he had no idea, apart from the fact that he took it everywhere and it was rarely such a nuisance. With a small sigh he nudged the lens out of his way and clambered out from under the set-up he was adjusting to pick up his phone from by the trapdoor that led back into his flat.

There was a text notification. 

 

 

> **_12:49am_ **  
>  **_unknown number_ **  
>  _i’m gonna fucking kill him_
> 
>  

Aziraphale blinked down at it. Before he could unlock his phone to respond another message came through. 

 

 

> _**12:49am** _  
>  _**unknown number** _  
>  _as if it’s not enough I’m at the fucking lab after midnight on a friday night he wants us all back in tomorrow at 8_
> 
>  

Whoever this was texted extremely fast, Aziraphale thought, as a third message came through. 

 

 

> **_12:51am_ **  
>  **_unknown number_ **  
>  _i’m gonna fill his coffee with fucking cleaner tmrw i’ve fucking had enough of this. see how the bastard likes being poisoned on his weekend >:)_
> 
>  

Aziraphale unlocked the phone and opened the text message app.

 

 

> **_sent 12:52am_ **  
>  _I don’t know what sort of lab you work in but you might try getting your hands on some arsenic, most cleaners have a noticeable sweet taste. Unless he takes sugar in his coffee._
> 
>  

Aziraphale walked across the roof and laid back down under the telescope, setting the phone within arm’s reach. He’d just gotten back into the rhythm of what he was doing when his phone dinged again.

 

 

> **_1:02am_ **  
>  **_unknown number_ **  
>  _this isn’t anathema, is it_
> 
> **_Sent 1:02am_ **  
>  _I’m afraid not._
> 
> **_1:03am_ **  
>  **_unknown number_ **  
>  _fuck_
> 
> **_1:03am_ **  
>  **_unknown number_ **  
>  _sorry my bad_
> 
> **_sent 1:04am_ **  
>  _It’s quite alright. I hope you sort out whatever’s going on._
> 
>  

The phone was silent after that, and Aziraphale stared at it, amused, before turned back to the telescope.

 

Crowley slapped his phone down on his nightstand after attaching the number to a contact (the very creative title of “WRONG NUMBER!!!”) so he wouldn’t make the same mistake again and collapsed into bed with a muffled sigh. Figured he’d have lost Anathema’s number. He’d have to message her on twitter or something. Or contact her through the Ouija. Crowley snorted at his own joke, then rolled over and stared at his phone in the dark room.

He’d meant to spend the evening with a pint of ice cream and old sitcoms on Netflix, not with his horrible coworkers. Trust Hastur to volunteer the three of them for some overtime. Not like it was making much of a difference. Their head of department was apparently determined to finish up this latest batch of tests before the end of semester even if it killed someone. Well, Crowley thought with something approaching giddiness, according to the wrong number he’d just texted all he had to do to make that come to pass was slip a bit of the stuff they kept on hand to feed the bacterial strains into Professor Pompous’s drink in the morning. He devoted several moments to imagining what it would be like to be free of their supervisor and closed his eyes with a smile. He’d never do it but you had to have dreams to keep your spirits up.

Crowley rolled over and pulled his duvet around himself. He’d shower in the morning before he had to go back in, he was too tired to get back up now he’d laid down.

 

Aziraphale yawned and got up stiffly from his position laying on the roof. He was going to have to bring some cushions up here at some point. The modifications to the telescope were nearly done; he’d be able to photograph the eclipse coming up in December if nothing came up to disturb him.

The edge of the sky was starting to go grey and hazy. Aziraphale looked along the horizon, fondness he’d always had for the very early morning washing over him. Not for the first time he reflected how very, very lucky he’d been to wind up with this life. He could be that poor fool who’d have six hours to sleep before going back to work this morning. Aziraphale opened his messages up and grimaced down at the texts he’d received a few hours ago. He hoped whoever was on the other end would be alright.

After covering the lenses of the telescope and throwing a tarp over the whole thing, Aziraphale climbed down the ladder into his flat and headed into the kitchen to make himself some tea before he went to bed for the day. Gabriel would be emailing him over the next week’s reports Sunday evening, and he needed to put together a shopping list and get to the store between now and then. He took a pad of paper and a pen with him to look through the fridge while the kettle boiled.

 

Crowley was, predictably, tetchy and irritable all Saturday. He didn’t poison his boss, though, and he even managed to keep snapping at the others to a minimum. Somehow, between the professor, Crowley, Hastur and Ligur, they managed to finish the batch of samples that had been on the schedule for the day by 3pm, so he tweeted at Anathema asking if she wanted to hang out in the evening and pleading her to text him since he’d deleted her contact somehow. Then he got on the tube to go to the park.

He sat on a bench in front of the duck pond, feeling wrung out and yet, somehow, totally incapable of settling down. He didn’t even really want to be here, he wanted to be home, in bed, but he knew he’d never get to sleep and that he’d feel better about his life for having been out in the sun for a bit.

He pulled out his phone to see if Anathema had gotten back to him. She hadn’t. He opened his texts and stared at the number he’d texted in the early morning, trying to figure out if he could remember hers from looking at the stranger’s.

And then, mostly because he was bored and miserable and wanted to poke at somebody, he started typing.

 

 

> _**Sent 3:34pm**  
>  i didn’t poison him but there’s always tomorrow_
> 
>  

The response he got back made him squint down at his phone in disbelief.

 

 

> _**3:36pm** _  
>  _**WRONG NUMBER!!!** _  
>  _Surely he’s not making you work on Sunday?_
> 
>  

Crowley had been expecting something along the lines of “piss off already”, not this weirdly polite chatter. He pushed down the impulse to answer the question and sent off another text.

 

 

> **_sent 3:37pm_ **  
>  _that’s not the point_
> 
> **_3:38pm_ **  
>  _**WRONG NUMBER!!!**_ _  
> _ _What is the point, then?_
> 
>  

Crowley let out a snort of disbelief.

 

 

> _**Sent 3:39pm**  
>  why the hell r u texting me_
> 
>  

Crowley set his phone down on the bench beside him and stared across the park, watching the ducks paddle around the pond. God, was he really so stressed out he needed to get his kicks antagonizing some random stranger?

His phone vibrated against the wooden bench.

 

 

> _**3:45pm** _  
>  _**WRONG NUMBER!!!** _  
>  _You texted me first on both occasions. I was simply being polite. Get some rest._
> 
>  

Crowley barked out a laugh and shoved his phone in his pocket, striding towards the nearby tube station.

 

Aziraphale frowned down at his phone for the dozenth time in as many hours and resumed pulling on his scarf and coat. He’d been up for less than an hour and wasn’t really in the mood to go out but the wrong number from earlier in the morning had woken him around quarter to four. He might as well get groceries before the shop down the street closed since he was now awake anyway.

He made his way downstairs and out of his building, headphones on and music playing as he went. Madame Tracy was her usual chatty self as he brought the ingredients for a lasagna and a quiche to the register.

“How are you, love? Still staying up all night? You look tired.”

“I am a bit.” He admitted as he took off his headphones and pulled his wallet from his pocket. “The telescope is nearly done, but between that, and Eve molting, and…” Aziraphale thought of the texts and pursed his lips, “well, other distractions, I’ve been rather busy the last few days.”

Madame Tracy patted his hand as she handed his credit card back to him. “You ought to take as much care of yourself as you do of that snake. It can’t be good for you, having a sleep schedule like that.”

Aziraphale took the card back. “I will try to keep that in mind. Have a good evening.”

“You as well!” Madame Tracy beamed at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling pleasantly. Aziraphale left the building with a small nod and slipped his headphones back on. She was a sweet old woman, Aziraphale thought. She reminded him a bit of what he’d always imagined someone’s maternal aunt must be like. He didn’t have a maternal aunt, or an aunt at all, but the notion remained.

After he got home and put the groceries away he stuck his nose in on Eve, who was still coiled up in her den, and made himself dinner. He pulled his phone back out and stared at the text conversation with the number he’d named “Rude” in his contacts. Why he felt compelled to do what he was about to do, he couldn’t have said.

 

 

> _**Sent 8:03pm**  
>  Did you get some rest?_
> 
>  

Aziraphale didn’t have to wait very long for a response, which surprised him less than he’d expected.

 

 

> **_8:05pm_ **  
>  **_Rude_ **  
>  _nah i’m at piccadilly peoplewatching_
> 
> **_Sent 8:05pm_ **  
>  _Why on Earth would you go there? I know the bulk of the tourists have stopped for the fall, but still._
> 
> **_8:06pm_ **  
>  **_Rude_ **  
>  _dunno. just not tired yet_
> 
>  

Aziraphale scrolled up through their conversation and frowned.

 

 

> _**Sent 8:07pm**  
>  Did you ever get in touch with Anathema?_
> 
> **8:08pm**  
>  **Rude**  
>  nope
> 
> _**8:08pm  
>  Rude**  
>  why r u still texting me_
> 
>  

Aziraphale thought for a moment.

 

 

> **_Sent 8:10pm_ **  
>  _I suppose I’m interested in knowing what kind of person sends a text about threatening their boss at nearly one in the morning._
> 
> **_8:11pm_ **  
>  **_Rude_ **  
>  _that’s fair_

 

Crowley told the stranger he was people-watching but really he was just keeping himself moving. He didn’t want to go back to his flat and try to decide between cooking himself a dinner and drinking until he passed out. It was probably healthier to be wandering around, even if he was by himself and a bit under-dressed for the evening chill.

He was leaning against a wall, thinking it was starting to be too cold to be outside, when his phone buzzed in his pocket again.

 

 

> **_8:16pm_ **  
>  **_WRONG NUMBER!!!_ **  
>  _I know I have no stake in this but I think you should go home and rest._
> 
>  

Crowley let out a huff of breath.

 

 

> _**Sent 8:17pm**  
>  ur right u have no stake in this. piss off_
> 
>  

The stranger, blessedly, didn’t text back. Crowley took the tube back home, irritated with himself for feeling bad.

He forced himself to eat a meal and then took a hot bath, which did settle him somewhat, but he was still likely to be up until at least midnight, given the hours he’d been keeping the last few days. He laid down on the couch, wrapped himself in the blanket from the back of the armchair, and put on The Golden Girls.

At quarter to midnight he glanced at his phone, trying to decide whether he should text the stranger back. He picked it up and unlocked it, and sent off a hasty message.

 

 

> _**Sent 11:46pm**  
>  sorry. i know this is gonna seem weird considering we know literally nothing abt each other but do you want to hang out sometime?_
> 
>  

Crowley hit send and instantly regretted it. It was late, whoever was on the other end might be asleep, and _he knew literally nothing about them_. Was he really so starved for attention that he’d keep texting a wrong number just to have someone to talk to?

But they’d texted back, so clearly they were just as desperate. Or just… a good Samaritan of some sort. They’d seemed concerned about his welfare and Jesus Christ, could he sound any more pathetic. Crowley sighed and got up from the couch, turning off Netflix just as Blanche was about to start yelling at Dorothy. He headed to his bedroom, still wrapped in his blanket, and deleted the conversation and the contact from his phone before turning it off and laying down to stare up at the ceiling.

He fell asleep sometime around 2am.

 

Aziraphale had put his phone in his room when he went up to the roof that night and was completely unsurprised to see he had a text message when he came back down. The contents of the text were the surprising part.

 

>    
>  **_11:46pm_**  
>  **_Rude_**  
>  _sorry. i know this is gonna seem weird considering we know literally nothing abt each other but do you want to hang out sometime?_
> 
>  

He left his phone by his bed and went to check on Eve, extremely unsettled.

By the time he was ready to go to sleep he’d decided what to say. It hadn’t even crossed his mind to block the number, for although he knew that was something one could do, and which might be appropriate in this situation, the truth was Aziraphale rather liked this little glimpse into this odd person’s life. There wasn’t any harm in texting somebody one didn’t know. It did seem a bit petty and useless, but Aziraphale _was_ both petty and useless, generally speaking.

 

 

> _**Sent 5:50am**  
>  You’re right, that does seem weird. As you’ve said we know literally nothing about each other, other than that you’re in London, going off your number. I don’t even know what you’re called, I have you as “Rude” in my phone._
> 
>  

And with that, Aziraphale settled down to go to sleep.

When he woke in the early afternoon it was to find a very short message in response. 

 

 

> **_10:33am_ **  
>  **_Rude_ **  
>  _anthony crowley_

 

 

Apart from the five minutes he’d spent checking to see if Anathema had tweeted back (she hadn’t) and sending off an embarrassed reply to the wrong number guy, Crowley spent the day with his phone off, trying desperately to relax. He lit some candles, cooked himself a nice meal, even pulled some books of poetry out of the back of his sock drawer. None of it entirely banished the jittering, ever-present sensation that he ought to be doing something, although Siken came the closest.

He’d entirely lost the ability to chill since starting his post-doc two years before, and he resented it. His only solace was that after December he’d be done with this lab and these coworkers, and could potentially move on to research with people who weren’t fucking psychopaths.

The way Hastur and the other one whose name Crowley could never remember talked about the professor in charge made him want to gag. The man was a bastard and they worshipped him for it. He was also top in their field and the deciding factor in whether Crowley would move on to something better than the work he was currently doing, or be shunted away to some side facility in rural England, or even further away. It was all very unpleasant, and frankly Crowley was amazed he’d made it so far without burning out. Holding himself together for the next couple months was about the best he could hope for at this point, and he hated it, but that was the nature of it.

He poured himself a glass of wine and pulled out another book of poetry.

 

Aziraphale had almost forgotten about Crowley by the time he texted again. He’d introduced himself as well, changed the contact name in his phone, and then gotten an unusually large load of paperwork from Gabriel on Sunday which took until Wednesday to finish. It was shortly after he sent the last of the batch of calculations off to its proper home that his phone dinged.

 

 

> **_9:21pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _let me preface this by saying this is technically confidential research_
> 
> **_9:21pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  **_sent a picture_ **
> 
> **_9:22pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _look at this bullshit, aziraphale_
> 
>  

Aziraphale opened the photo to find a long data sheet with many crossings out and scribbled notes. There was quite a lot of red pen but underneath it seemed to be a genome sequence.

 

 

> **_Sent 9:24pm_ **  
>  _I have degrees in astrophysics, Christian history, and accounting, but I’m afraid genetics is Greek to me._
> 
> _**9:25pm** _  
>  _**Anthony Crowley** _  
>  _you have THREE degrees????_
> 
> **_9:26pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _nvm the point is that NOBODY can read this. this isn’t how you leave notes for ur colleagues_
> 
> **_9:27pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _actually can we go back to u having 3 degrees. what the hell do u do for a living_
> 
>  

Aziraphale smirked.

 

 

> **_Sent 9:29pm_ **  
>  _I do financial consulting from home. The other two are a matter of personal interest._
> 
> **_9:31pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _wish I could do cell biology from home. i’m still at the lab as we speak >:(_

 

So it went. Aziraphale worked on the reports Gabriel sent him, made modifications to his telescope, and texted Crowley. Crowley spent nearly every waking moment in the lab, testing samples of bacteria and looking at artificial cells he and his fellow post-docs had grown, and texted Aziraphale. And slowly, slowly, they became a fixed presence in each other’s lives, until neither of them could really imagine not having this odd little friendship. Both of them grew to look forward to the other's messages.

And then one day Crowley stopped responding.

There were few things in the world that Aziraphale hated more than talking on the phone, but he felt he ought to at least try and ring through to his friend, because it had been two days and he hadn’t answered. He made himself a mug of cocoa, took it to the chair by the window in his bedroom, and made the call.

The phone rang ten times before someone answered.

“’lo?” came a voice, both higher and warmer than Aziraphale would have expected if he’d ever given it any thought. It also sounded croaky.

“Have you been crying?” Aziraphale asked. He heard a sharp intake of breath come down the line.

“You sound different than I would have thought.”

“So do you.” Aziraphale admitted.

There was a shuffling sound. “Good or bad?” Came the quiet reply.

“Good.” Aziraphale said without hesitation. “ _Have_ you been crying?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

Crowley laughed. “Everything’s wrong. This bloody job, my bloody flat, I keep having to cancel plans with Anathema to stay late at the lab, I haven’t spoken in person to another human being in weeks…”

“Surely you talk to your coworkers.”

“I dunno if they count as human, Aziraphale.”

“That’s right.” Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Your supervisor is the devil himself and Hastur and Ligur his demon underlings.”

“They might as well be!” Crowley snapped, then sighed. “I’ve been a bit of a wreck this week. Haven’t left the flat since Monday, haven’t been in to work. Sorry I haven’t answered your texts.”

“How often have I told you that you push yourself too hard?”

“You think I don’t know that?” Crowley’s voice rose. “You think I didn’t see this coming? I’ve been waiting for the shoe to drop for months. I’m not cut out for this but I don’t have a fucking choice, this is the path I started on so I’ve got to finish it. Not all of us stumbled into a cozy little set-up where you do paperwork from home and other people pay you for it.”

Aziraphale could hear him breathing, hard, down the line, could almost picture his chest heaving and his eyes filling with tears, although he had no idea what Crowley might look like. “I’m sorry, my dear.” He murmured, at a loss for anything else to say. He wanted to hold him, suddenly.

“I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“Come out with me.” Aziraphale spoke up before he really knew what he was saying.

Crowley was silent for a long time. “What?”

“You’ve been inside for three days, that can’t be doing much to help.” Aziraphale justified. “Let’s go to… I don’t know, to St James Park. You’ve said you like it there.”

“It’s awfully cold today.”

“We’ll meet there and go back to mine. I’ll show you the telescope.”

Crowley didn’t respond for so long Aziraphale was afraid he’d lost the connection. He drank his cocoa rather hastily and burned his tongue.

Then, finally, “I’ll see you in an hour.”

 

Aziraphale was nervous. More nervous than seemed reasonable, given the circumstances. He was meeting a friend in a public place, there was nothing to feel nervous about.

Except there was _everything_ to feel nervous about. The few other people in this stretch of the park were all minding their own business, on their phones or chatting to their companions or feeding the ducks. Crowley would know instantly who he was upon walking up to him, because they’d agreed upon this bench specifically and besides, he was the only one fidgeting and looking about and oh, why couldn’t he stay calm? It was _Crowley_ and he’d never been happier to agree to meet with anyone.

And that was it, wasn’t it, Aziraphale thought. He’d been looking forward to this, even if he hadn’t really thought about it before bringing the subject up himself, and now he was afraid of being a disappointment. He was afraid Crowley was going to look at him, with his frumpy sweater and his scuffed shoes and the glasses that were fashionable twenty years ago, at the extra weight around his middle and the fact he could never manage to hold eye contact for longer than a second or so, and decide he didn’t want him. It was startling and embarrassing to admit, but Aziraphale wanted Crowley to want him. 

A man with dark hair wearing sunglasses and an expression of nervousness walked by, spotted Aziraphale, and headed for him. Aziraphale took a steadying breath.

 

Crowley was cold, and anxious, and he wanted to go home and sleep or at the very least sit in the dark and mope, but he had wanted to meet Aziraphale for too long to let a little thing like sheer terror at the thought stop him. He stuck his hands in the pocket of his coat and hunched his shoulders up so he could burrow his chin further into the collar. He was nearly to the spot they’d arranged to meet, thank God.

Crowley had a very definite mental image in his mind of Aziraphale after talking to him for the last several months but he wasn’t expecting it to actually match up to the reality of him, so it startled him immensely to see the chubby, sweater-clad man with mousy curls sitting, drumming his fingers against his knees and biting his lip, more or less exactly like Crowley had imagined him. His heart leapt in his chest as he approached and sat down next to him on the bench.

“Hi, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale looked him up and down, and for a long, horrified moment, Crowley thought he’d got it wrong, or worse, that this _was_ Aziraphale but that he wasn’t as happy to see Crowley as Crowley was to see him, that he was a let-down somehow, too sharp, too direct, not direct enough and why the fuck was he wearing these sunglasses? But Aziraphale wasn’t looking at his face anyway, he was taking his hand and giving it a small squeeze. Crowley flinched at the contact and then relaxed. Aziraphale, blessedly, didn’t comment on it, just kept holding his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“I’m so glad to see you.” Aziraphale said, absolutely beaming.

“So am I.” Crowley said, a smile breaking across his face as well. “You look exactly like what I’d thought.”

A blush dusted Aziraphale’s cheeks. “Good or bad?” He echoed Crowley’s words from earlier, his voice very small.  

“ _Good.”_ Crowley said earnestly, and Aziraphale’s blush deepened.

“I’m afraid I had no idea what I thought you might look like.”

“None at all?” Crowley said, slightly teasingly. Aziraphale looked him in the eye behind their respective pairs of glasses, and Crowley’s stomach gave a little jerk.

“I did think you might be taller.” Aziraphale said, his tone making it perfectly clear he was joking.

Crowley laughed, relieved. Warmth was spreading though him like the sun, like sitting in Aziraphale’s presence was an island of summer in the middle of this cold day in November.

The sat there for several moments, just looking at each other, Crowley noticing the way Aziraphale’s eyes kept landing back on his lips. It was rather thrilling.  “You were going to take me back to your place?” Crowley prompted, and then realized what that sounded like, and wanted to kick himself.

Aziraphale seemed unphased by it. “Only if you want. I understand if you’d prefer to go home. We are essentially strangers.”

“We’re not.” Crowley said, shaking his head. “And I do. Want to go back to your flat.”

They left the park hand in hand, Crowley feeling the most comfortable he’d been in over a year.

 

“Well, this is it.” Aziraphale waved an arm around the interior of his flat as they made it to the top of the stairs and closed the door into the hall.

“You live over a bookshop.” Crowley said.

“I do.”

“You _live_ over a _bookshop_?”

“Is that funny in some way?” Aziraphale bristled.

“No, but it doesn’t seem like something that could really be true. It’s so... whimsical, I guess.”  

Aziraphale crossed his arms and leaned against the nearest bookshelf. “I suppose you’re one of the kind who live in an all-white modernist flat and drives an expensive car, are you?” He said, very dryly.

Crowley laughed and folded his sunglasses and set them on the coffee table. “It’s like you know me.” Aziraphale chuckled. “Your flat is perfect. It’s very _you_.”

Aziraphale shrugged. “I rent the space from the shop owner, I haven’t seen him in years but I happened to be passing one day and I needed someplace with a flat roof.”

“Why?” Crowley asked, walking around and looking at the names of the books on the many shelves in the small living room.

“Come and see.”

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand again and pulled him into the bedroom. Crowley’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to say something, and Aziraphale shot him a look.

“Relax, you silly thing. The trapdoor to the roof is through here.”

Aziraphale went up first and gestured for Crowley to follow, mostly because he wanted to see Crowley’s face when he emerged through the trapdoor and saw the sunset over London. It was absolutely breathtaking, the way he smiled, the way all the tension drained from his expression for a moment as he pulled himself up to stand beside Aziraphale.

 

 

Crowley listened to Aziraphale explain the telescope and modifications he’d made to it, the way skyglow in the city was usually too strong to see much of anything but how he’d been working on something to minimize that, about how he was planning to photograph the eclipse coming up in the middle of the month. He listened, and he nodded, and he was paying attention but he was also replaying the way Aziraphale had taken his hand, and his nervousness, and Crowley's own nervousness, and the little jolt he'd felt when they'd made eye contact.

This was a date, Crowley realized, and he instantly wished he’d put more thought into what he was wearing, although he didn’t get the impression Aziraphale cared about that sort of thing.

“—and in a couple of hours we’ll be able to use it to see Saturn’s rings, assuming the weather holds.” Aziraphale finished, and looked at Crowley expectantly. Crowley nodded, understanding the invitation.

“I’d love that.” He said, and Aziraphale smiled. “I don’t suppose we could have something to drink while we wait?”

An hour later they had brought nearly all the pillows and blankets from the flat up to the roof, along with a spread of cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine. Crowley lay close to Aziraphale in the darkening evening, still feeling that same inexplicable warmth and comfort in his presence.

“I feel so lucky to know you.” Crowley murmured as he took another bit of cheddar from their shared plate. “You have such a nice life, it’s sort of a relief to know there can be people who live like this.”

Aziraphale looked at him, his eyes half-closed from where he was resting his cheek on his crossed arms. His hair was a mess and Crowley very much wanted to touch it. “You don’t have to stay at that lab, you know.”

Crowley laughed, sharp and bitter. “I do. My supervisor may be Satan but he’s the top of our field. I’ll be done at the end of the year and then I can choose to go somewhere else.”

“That’s two months away.”

“I can do it.” Crowley insisted. “I’m just… I’m tired, yes, but I’ll be fine.”

“Will you?” Aziraphale rolled onto his back and stared up at the sky. “Will you actually go somewhere else when you’re done, or will you stay there even though you hate it, because the pay is good or because you’re making a difference or because every once in a while the work outweighs the way the people there make you feel?”

“And how’s that?” Crowley snapped, glaring.

“Like you’re falling behind.”

Crowley didn’t say anything. After a moment he turned onto his back, too.

“I love the stars.” Aziraphale said some minutes later. “People have been looking up at the stars for all of recorded history, and probably before that, as well.”

Crowley could vaguely see where this was going but he let Aziraphale talk. He hadn’t gotten over the novelty of his voice. The phone call earlier seemed simultaneously a thousand years ago and just seconds in the past. They’d known each other for two months, or forever.

“Different cultures have different constellations, different stories. But the stars are the same regardless of what we call them. Some of them don’t even exist anymore, but because they’re so far away we still see them.” He pointed at the sky. “If Sirius up there disappeared tomorrow, we wouldn’t know for nearly nine years because the light takes so long to travel the distance between us.”

Crowley squinted up. The sky seemed uniformly murky, hazy with the light from the city. He could make out a few pinpricks here and there but he didn’t know enough about the constellations to know where Aziraphale was pointing.

“Which one is Sirius?” He asked, looking over at Aziraphale with a small smile on his lips. Aziraphale huffed and scooted closer, their heads very close together. He took Crowley’s hand, raised it to the sky.

“That one, the brightest one next to that group. That’s Orion, that constellation there, with the three stars in the middle. The Greeks saw Sirius as Orion’s dog which followed him across the sky. It’s where we get the term ‘dog days’.”

Crowley wasn’t really listening anymore, was instead looking up at where Aziraphale’s hand was still covering his, pointing skyward. Crowley twined their fingers together and lowered their clasped hands to his chest and he heard Aziraphale’s chattering stutter to a halt.

“I’m sorry, keep going.” Crowley said. “This was an extended metaphor about my work habits, I think?”

Aziraphale turned and blinked in surprise at him. “Was it?”

“I thought so.”

“It’s rather lost the plot then, hasn’t it.” Aziraphale murmured.

Crowley hummed in response, and kissed him. It was nice, and then Aziraphale made a sound low in his throat and Crowley rolled over and partially on top of him, and then it was even nicer.

“Oh, _Crowley_.” Aziraphale said on a soft sigh when they came up for air.

 “You’re an angel, you know that?” Crowley whispered against his jaw, peppering kisses down into the hollow of his throat.

“I—oh, oh, don’t stop.” Aziraphale’s hand came to clutch convulsively in Crowley’s hair as he started to bruise his neck. “I think…”

“Yes?” Crowley prompted as he fumbled the top buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt open and dipped down against his collarbone.

In response Aziraphale rolled them both over, pinning Crowley below him and nudging a knee between his legs. Crowley moaned and Aziraphale kissed him, hard.

It was dizzying, the way Aziraphale was touching him now, making short work of the buttons on his shirt and trailing a hand down his chest and stomach before settling at his hip. And all the while he was kissing him like he was starving, like Crowley was something he wanted to devour, like he’d wanted him since the birth of the world and was just now finding him. Crowley shuddered against him.

“Aziraphale, can we—oh, _fuck_ —can we take this down to your bedroom?”

Aziraphale seemed to catch himself and he pulled back, his chest heaving. “Of course.” He smiled, faintly smug. “You know, the reason Sirius is so clearly visible from Earth at all is because it’s actually a binary system.”

An answering grin split Crowley’s face. “Back on the metaphor, then?”

Aziraphale stood up and helped Crowley to his feet, still smirking. “I suppose so. If you like.”

 

Later they lay together under the sheets and an old quilt Aziraphale had grabbed at random from the pile of blankets on the roof, sleepy and sated. Crowley’s head was on Aziraphale’s chest, listening to the sound of his heart beating.

“I don’t want to go back into the lab tomorrow.” Crowley said, very quietly. Aziraphale brushed a strand of his hair behind his ear.

“Then don’t.” _Stay here with me,_ he thought, and hoped Crowley had heard the sentiment if not the words.

“I can’t.” Crowley said.  “It’s only two more months, and I’ll be free.”

Aziraphale sighed, still petting Crowley’s hair. “Come over on the 16th of December for the eclipse, then.”

"I will." He sat up, kissed Aziraphale slowly. "I need to head home, though, so I can get back to work in the morning."

Aziraphale nodded. He watched Crowley get dressed for a moment, then remembered the things on the roof and climbed out of bed himself to go retrieve them. 

 

 

> **_12:23pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _i know ur still probably asleep but if i don't complain i WILL scream_
> 
> **_12:24pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _lu delegated some of my work while i was gone to one of the grad students and is mad at ME they fucked it up_
> 
> **_12:25_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _i've decided to kill him. legitimately this time_

 

Aziraphale rubbed his eyes and looked sleepily at his phone. 

  

 

> **_sent 12:26pm_ **  
>  _Wait until the end of the day and dissolve his body in acid._
> 
> **_12:27_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _ah yes let me just head to the ACID ROOM on campus_
> 
> **_sent 12:28pm_ **  
>  _Don't biology labs keep acid on-hand?_
> 
> **_12:29pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _that's chemistry. u watch too many bad movies_
> 
> **_sent 12:30pm_ **  
>  _I've just woken up, you'll have to forgive me. Perhaps you'd like to come over tonight and we can watch a good one. For educational purposes, you understand._
> 
> **_12:31pm_ **  
>  **_Anthony Crowley_ **  
>  _sure, angel xxx_
> 
>  

Crowley showed up at 10pm with a small assortment of movies, all of which they eventually vetoed in favor of _The Princess Bride_ on the basis that it was one of six movies Aziraphale actually owned on tape and Crowley had neglected to ask if he had a dvd player (he didn't). 

 "How _old_ are you?" Crowley asked with a snort, settling against Aziraphale on the couch and offering him the bowl of popcorn. 

"Fourty-three." Aziraphale responded. 

"God, no wonder you've got your life together so much better than I do." Crowley muttered around a mouthful of popcorn.

"How old are _you_?" Aziraphale asked. 

Crowley sighed, leaning his head back against Aziraphale's chest. "I'll be... thirty-one at the end of December? Thirty-two. I think. I know I turned thirty right before I started the post-doc. Anathema treated it like it was my last night of freedom or something, dragged me to about fifteen bars. You'd think _I_ was the married one." 

"How can you not know how old you are?" Aziraphale asked with a chuckle. 

"I lost multiple years of my life getting a doctorate. After the second year working on an MD they all start to blur together." Crowley said, helping himself to more popcorn and enjoying the way Aziraphale's chest and soft belly rumbled against his back as he laughed.

  

 

> **_6:36am_ **  
>  **_Aziraphale <3_ **  
>  _You left a scarf and pair of gloves here, do you want to stop by and get them before you go into the lab?_
> 
> **_sent 6:40am_ **  
>  _i'll be there asap but it'll have to be quick, lu will have my ass if i'm late again_
> 
> **_6:41am_ **  
>  **_Aziraphale <3_ **  
>  _I fully intend to have your ass myself, dear._
> 
> **_sent 6:41am_ **  
>  _i'm holding you to that_

 

Crowley couldn't remember ever being happier, not even for the brief period of time he'd thought he'd be able to move to Spain. Not with anybody, not ever. Aziraphale made him feel... comfortable. Like he was the person he was supposed to be. It was partially that they seemed to operate on the same slightly different frequency than everyone around them. Crowley had known a few other people like that in his life (Anathema, for example, and her much younger brother Adam), but never dated any of them. He'd never dated much, period, and that was the other part of it. The kind of closeness he had with Aziraphale wasn't something he'd really felt before, and it was wonderful. 

Unfortunately for his work performance and future career, it was apparently seeping over into the rest of his life. After Crowley was late the third time the supervisor pulled him aside to give him another talk on the futility of hope and the inevitability of loss, or whatever the fuck it was he talked about in between making snide comments about Crowley's work labwork and position. It was all Crowley could do to smile and go back to what he'd been doing, and as soon as he got home that evening he poured himself a glass of wine and called Aziraphale to complain. 

“—anyway I fucking hate him. How far into December are we?" Crowley asked. 

"It's the 16th." Aziraphale said, his voice slightly clipped. 

"Oh." Crowley said. "Oh,  _shit_. That's tonight, isn't it." 

"The eclipse is tonight, yes." Aziraphale said, his tone one Crowley could recognize by now as forced unconcern. 

"Tomorrow is a Thursday." 

"Yes, it is." 

Crowley set his wine down. "I'm sorry, Aziraphale, I completely forgot, and I haven't asked for time off, and if I don't show up tomorrow after the chewing out I got today..." 

"It's alright, I understand." Aziraphale said, too cheerfully to be sincere. "I'll still see you on Friday?"

"Yeah. Love you." 

"I love you, too, Crowley." 

Crowley hung up and stared at the phone screen, feeling miserable. Then, he got a text. 

  

 

> **_6:33pm_ **  
>  **_Demon #2_ **  
>  _the cultures in the biggest fridge need rotated before 9 tonight_
> 
>  

Crowley stared down at the little bubble on the screen. Was this his life? Really? Was this going to be his life? Getting yelled at by a self-important prick and getting bossed around by two assholes whose names he couldn't even be bothered to remember some days? 

  

 

> **_sent 6:34pm_ **  
>  _do it urself i have plans_
> 
> **_6:35pm_ **  
>  **_Demon #2_ **  
>  _i know for a fact that lu is having you sent to manchester after this research period is up but i'm sure with enough snotty disobedience he could send u to reykjavik instead. be even harder to keep dates with ur boyfriend from iceland_
> 
> **_sent 6:36pm_ **  
>  _and how would u know that?_
> 
> **_6:37pm_ **  
>  **_Demon #2_ **  
>  _hastur's been offered the role as lu's replacement and i've been given a tenure track position_
> 
>  

Crowley could just feel the smug satisfaction emanating off of the message. Part of him wanted to throw his phone against the wall. The rest of him just wanted to... cry. Years he'd worked with these bastards, and for what? To be shunted off to head a facility in fucking Manchester? To have to leave the school he'd given the last decade of his life to? To be sent away from London? From Aziraphale? 

  

 

> **_sent 6:40pm_ **  
>  _go fuck urself, ligur_
> 
>  

Crowley turned his phone off, poured the rest of his glass of wine down the sink, and headed out of his flat and down to his car.

 

Aziraphale was half-heartedly making salmon and a salad, which he'd mostly bought because Crowley had been coming over and which no longer seemed quite as appealing as it had done an hour ago. It also seemed a bit silly to open a bottle of wine for himself, so he didn't. Funny. He'd never minded drinking alone before. 

There was a loud and frantic knock on the door and Aziraphale nearly dropped the salmon, which he’d just pulled from the oven, on the kitchen floor. He set the food down and rushed to get the door, letting out a little cry of happiness as Crowley stepped into the room and hung his coat on the rack by the door. 

"Crowley, you truly didn't have to come but I'm so glad to see you." He pulled Crowley into a hug and kissed his soundly. Crowley stiffened and then relaxed against him, sighing. 

"I think I just quit the lab." He said. 

"Oh, _no,_ Crowley." Aziraphale patted his back, unsure what else to say. 

"Hastur and Ligur are both moving up at the college at the end of the year and I'm being sent to Manchester. According to Ligur, anyway. If it's not true I guess I'll find out when I get a phone call for not showing up tomorrow." 

Aziraphale grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back to look him in the eye. "What prompted this? How did you find this out?" 

Crowley let out a hiss of laughter. "Ligur thought it'd be funny to tell me, as leverage to get me to go into work again this evening. I realized as I was driving over here that I would never... that I _could_ never do enough things right at this job to make up for the fact that these people don't like me and don't want me to succeed." He shook his head. "I should have done something the very first week. Gone to someone and told them the way Lu runs his lab is insane and that I couldn't work for him, and to reassign me to someone else." 

"Maybe." Aziraphale said, nodding. Crowley winced. "But it's no use worrying about it now.” He brushed Crowley’s hair out of his eyes and let his hand linger on his cheek. Crowley closed his eyes for a moment.

”You’re probably right. I did what I thought I should do, then. I just... have different priorities now.”

Aziraphale kissed him again. “Come have something to eat." 

Crowley gave him a small smile, and they went to the kitchen.

Later they'd go up to the roof and watch the eclipse. Aziraphale would test out his camera set-up for the first time, and manage to get some pictures good enough for a magazine, if he'd cared to submit them. They'd go back down to bed around three, and make love, and fall asleep curled up together. Crowley would receive a very angry and threatening phone call from his supervisor, full legal name Lucifer Anderson, the next morning, and hang up on him. He'd walk through the park with Aziraphale, feeling lighter than he had in years, and the resilience of a little clump of thistle against the morning’s frost would remind him that he'd always been rather more fond of plants than people when it came to his biology schooling. He'd go on to discover a new kind of flower, which he'd name after Aziraphale. They'd retire to the South Downs, Aziraphale's telescope and books and Crowley's plants and car coming with them.

But that will happen later. For now they're smiling at each other over food and wine, neither of them knowing what to expect from the future, apart from each other. 


	2. Prologue: Cascade Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale's academic adviser calls him in to talk about his grades. 
> 
> Featuring Gabriel not being an asshole for once (that's how you know this is an AU).
> 
> StupidPoetry requested more set in this universe and this is the backstory I came up with for Aziraphale when I was initially writing this fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that meme that's like "this is probably too self-indulgent, but creating it has caused you to feel an enormous amount of satisfaction" because that's me publishing this.
> 
> Anyway long live autistic Aziraphale.

"You can come in now, Ezra." Gabriel called through the door, and Aziraphale shuffled in and collapsed in the chair before his student adviser's desk, letting out a little huff of breath. 

"How are you doing?" The man said, not unkindly. His relative kindness wasn't the problem here, though. 

"I'm..." Aziraphale started, looking down at the desk, his eyes roving over the assortment of trinkets and baubles, the backs of picture frames, a small ornamental lightbulb full of paper stars. "I'm..." 

"Ezra." Gabriel said softly, chidingly. 

"That's not my name." Aziraphale responded, picking up the lightbulb and turning it over and over in his hands. 

"Aziraphale, then." Gabriel said. "I can't help you if you don't talk to me." 

"I don't need your help." Aziraphale snapped. He set the lightbulb down again and stared out the window over Gabriel's shoulder. The sun seemed too bright, the world too big and open and _crowded_ , even this small corner of it that he'd grown accustomed to over the last two years. He wanted to cry. He didn't. 

"Aziraphale, your marks this semester are... frankly, they're disappointing. I've grown to expect better from you. I can only assume something's wrong and you need help, but I can't give it to you if you won't tell me what's going on." 

"Nothing is going on." 

"Something obviously is, or you wouldn't be only a matter of time away from flunking out." Impatience had crept into Gabriel's tone, and Aziraphale winced. "You've always struck me as a bright young man with a lot of promise, but if this is the way you're going to behave..." 

Aziraphale felt himself crumpling under the words, the same old song he'd been hearing all his life.

He'd hoped university would be different, that he could _make_ it different. For the first time ever he'd been free to pick what he wanted to do, to focus on something he loved, and he loved the stars.

People always seemed impressed when he told them he was studying astrophysics, but to him, it was just... logical. He'd thought, going in, that the only way he'd be able to make it through the years it would take to finish university was to choose something he was passionate enough about that he wouldn't have to work to make himself focus. He hadn't anticipated all the other moving parts it took to maintain a life, not until after it was too late. Small things broke here and there, and interest in what he was studying wasn't enough to fix the problems with his sleep schedule, his eating habits, the way too much noise or the press of people around him could sometimes send him into a panic. The aggregate effect of all the little ways people treated him, and all the little ways he felt he deserved it, because he _was_ weird. It had built and built and built and now he was trapped, and he didn't know how to begin telling Gabriel that. 

"I'm..." Aziraphale opened and closed his mouth, trying to grasp the name of what he was feeling, what he'd been feeling all spring. "I don't know. I don't know how to explain." 

"That's very frustrating to hear, Aziraphale." Gabriel said. 

"It's frustrating to say!" Aziraphale said, wanting to throw the lightbulb across the room and resisting the urge. He set it down and clenched his hands into fists and felt the way his nails, midnight blue, cut into his palm instead. "I am doing my best but it never seems to be good enough. I wish I knew why I am the way that I am, but..."

Gabriel was silent for a moment, and Aziraphale looked back down at the desk, trying to steady out his breathing. He could feel tears pricking in his eyes. 

"Why you are the way you are?" Gabriel prompted after several moments. 

"I'm..." Aziraphale swallowed. "I'm not normal." 

The clock on the wall ticked. Aziraphale took deep breaths. After a time, Gabriel sighed. 

"How do you mean?" 

Aziraphale flushed miserably. "It's not a problem with the class work, it's a problem with... everything else." 

Gabriel hummed, and Aziraphale looked up. His expression had shifted although Aziraphale couldn't tell into what. "Have you been sleeping poorly?" 

Aziraphale shrugged minutely. "I can't seem to sleep when I'm supposed to." 

"What does that mean, exactly?" 

"I can't fall asleep until 3am some nights, and then I have to get up at 7 to make my 8 o'clock class, and I don't remember anything from the lecture because I'm so tired but I can't get to sleep any earlier because I just lay awake thinking about how exhausted I'll be the next day." Aziraphale said, the words tripping out of him in a rush. "And then I'll take a nap after lunch because otherwise I'll be too tired to do my work, but it keeps me from getting to sleep in the evening and it starts all over again." 

"You do have lunch, though?" 

"Most of the time." Aziraphale thought of sitting in his dorm, frustrated nearly to tears because he wanted to go to the common area and buy lunch but the thought of walking there, through the crowds of other students also heading to buy lunch, was too much for him. 

"And when do you do your homework?" 

"Whenever I can manage to do it." Aziraphale said listlessly, his nails biting into his palms again. 

"Whereas you feed yourself and sleep only when you can't put it off anymore." Gabriel said. It wasn't a question. 

Aziraphale thought that was unfair, considering he did genuinely try to do both of those things. It just seemed like sometimes his body had other plans. "I..." 

"Do you think you prioritize your homework over taking care of yourself?" 

Aziraphale bristled. "No, of course not." 

"But you do think of your schoolwork as important enough that you lose sleep worrying about being tired, and sometimes don't eat because you're working." 

"No! I don't eat because sometimes I don't want to be around people." Aziraphale crossed his arms. "I don't see how this is relevant."

Gabriel ignored this last. "Why don't you like to be around people?" 

"It's exhausting and if I'm exhausted I can't focus." 

"On work." Gabriel pointed out. "You don't take care of yourself because you're using up all your energy on academics. Do you understand where I'm coming from in thinking so, Aziraphale?" 

Aziraphale felt cold. "Yes, but-" He looked wildly around the room. "I don't have any other choice." 

Gabriel chuckled. "Of course you do. Switch majors." 

Aziraphale looked at him like he'd just announced he wanted Aziraphale to fly to the moon, unsupported by any kind of rocket or propulsion technology, using wings he'd grown himself. Gabriel covered his hand with his mouth and looked apologetic as he stifled his laughter.  

"You're good at math? And you like it?" 

"Yes, well enough." 

"Switch to accounting. The work load is more manageable and you'll have a greater choice of time slots. You'll be able to go to sleep as late as you need." 

"But I _love_ astrophysics." 

"I'm sure you do. You don't need to be doing something you love to make money and look after yourself." 

Aziraphale considered this. "I don't want to just give up." 

"Who said anything about giving up? You can always come back to an interest later but if you permanently hurt yourself burning out that's harder to recover from." Gabriel folded his hands on the table in front of him. "You don't have to make a decision now, but think about it." 

Aziraphale stared at him, not seeing him at all. "I'll try." He didn't intend to at all, but Gabriel didn't need to know that. 

"Good. You're free to go." 

Three days later Aziraphale took the paperwork down to the registrar's office declaring he'd changed course of study. It did feel like giving up, at first. And then one day he found himself well rested for the first time in two years. The week after that he realized he had an appetite, and he learned that there were a lot of perfectly satisfactory things he could cook and eat in the small kitchen in the ground floor of the dorm building. He did have more time now, so he taught himself to cook. He bought himself a cheap telescope  and he spent the late nights he couldn't sleep fiddling with it or in the library researching, still attached to the stars even if it was a different sort of angle to the abstract way he'd been studying them before. 

And somehow, somehow he graduated.

The first year out of university might have been very bad for him if he hadn't called Gabriel a few months into the job he'd found and told him he was _scared_ , because that was the feeling he'd had that spring and it was back in full force now he was a proper adult and expected to get up and go into an office five mornings a week. Gabriel had pulled some strings, and Aziraphale had been embarrassed and ashamed that he'd needed help, but not so embarrassed and ashamed that he turned down Gabriel's suggestion that he start doing freelance work. 

It ended up paying better anyway. He'd been able to afford to move into a flat with a roof set-up that worked for his telescope. He'd been able to afford to start building the telescope he'd been making plans for for years. He'd been able to afford to finish the degree he'd started- he never went back to school and didn't think he could have if he'd wanted to, but times were changing and distance learning was growing, growing so much that after another couple years he started a third degree. Christian history had always sort of interested him, and soon his flat was filled with books on Rome and Greece and the Byzantine empire and saints and scholars alongside his already very extensive collection on Greek astronomical history. 

Slowly, slowly, Aziraphale realized he'd never been as broken as he'd felt that year Gabriel had called him into his office. It wasn't that he wasn't built for the world he lived in, it was that the world wasn't built for him to live in it. The world was loud, and open, and crowded, and he wasn't overly sensitive. He was just... sensitive. He just saw things and felt things and heard things while other people didn't. And it was alright. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a playlist for this fic because I guess it's not done bugging me yet. 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XtZ8hAJ1IPHUTUKKEKKiz


	3. Prologue Pt II: Isotropic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has something important he wants to tell his roommate. 
> 
> Featuring Anathema and a one-line mention of Newt. 
> 
> I've been thinking about this literally since I posted the second chapter but I am just getting around to writing it now, and am mostly doing so because queerlxy mentioned wanting more trans content and loving this fic in very quick succession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly think I can't leave this universe alone because of how convenient it is to have a human!AU that I can keep dumping things on. 
> 
> Anyway. Everyone is queer and autistic.

Crowley looked at himself in the full length mirror in the bathroom he shared with Anathema. Himself. His body. His long legs in too-tight pants and his oversized jacket that covered his hips. His badly-done haircut he was too clumsy with a pair of scissors to fix to his satisfaction. His weird little mole on his chin. His yellow-green eyes. Nothing had changed, just the way he thought of it-- or, not even that. Just the way he wanted other people to think of it. 

That was what he was going to say to Anathema when she came back from her date with that Classics major, anyway. Everything had changed, but nothing Anathema needed to worry about. Or at least, he hoped so. He went to sit on his bunk and twisted the corner of his jacket between his fingers. There was no chance he was going to get any of his chemistry homework done this evening, not when he was so anxious. Eventually he ended up putting on his headphones and lying down, staring at the underside of Anathema's bunk.  

What the hell was he going to do if she reacted badly? It was a slim thing, Anathema reacting badly to the information he needed to share with her; she'd gone to that queer meeting with him across campus earlier in the fall, after all. She'd told him, softly and reassuringly as they'd sat in the dorm drinking tequila straight from the bottle afterwards, that it was okay if he was gay. She didn't think any differently of him for being gay. 

And he was gay, just... not in the way she'd thought then. But if Anathema didn't mind having a lesbian for a best friend and a roommate, probably she wouldn't mind having a trans man, either. In theory. Crowley hoped. 

Crowley let out a shivery sigh, wishing the music he was listening to could grow loud enough to swallow him, wipe out everything else. He turned it up as loud as it would go and tried not to feel the writhing anxiety eating away at his stomach. It helped just enough that when Anathema came back into their dorm, the door bouncing off the wall in her excitement, he yelped. 

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Anathema laughed as she closed the door and hung her coat on the hook on the back. She examined the dent in the plaster of the wall where the doorknob had bounced off, shrugged, and threw herself down in the beanbag chair under the window. "Let me tell you about the evening I've just had." 

Crowley set his mp3 player and headphones on the little shelf next to his bed and slid onto the floor. "Is this a 'drinks and complaining' kind of story or a 'drinks and celebrating' kind of story?" he asked, reaching under his bed for the stash of alcohol they kept hidden there. 

"A bit of both?" Anathema said without looking up at him. She was rummaging in her purse for something. "He's very nice, Jason, but a bit of an idiot if I'm being-- oh, Crowley." She stopped talking all of a sudden. She'd looked up at last and was staring at his hair with an expression like she was trying not to laugh. "Oh, sweetheart." Crowley froze, in the midst of pulling out the booze, and she sobered up. "I'm sorry, it's just you've done a very bad job." she gestured to his hair. "Would you like me to fix it?" 

"I..." Crowley was torn between relief that he wouldn't have to speak up immediately, and discomfort that his terror was to be prolonged. But he nodded, and Anathema set her purse aside and stood up, pulling Crowley to his feet and nudging him into the tiny bathroom they shared with the pair in the dorm room next to them. 

"So... tell me about your date, then." Crowley said as he gripped the counter of the sink. Anathema peered into his face in the mirror, a frown tugging at her lips. 

"What's wrong?" She asked. Crowley grimaced. 

"Are you going to fix my hair or not?" He snapped, and Anathema set the scissors back down in the cup that held Crowley's toothbrush. She crossed her arms. 

"Depends on whether you're going to tell me what's the matter. You're a terrible liar, Crowley."

"I'm gay." Crowley said, and winced. 

"Yes, I knew that." 

"No, I mean... I'm gay in a general sense, and maybe in a more specific sense as well, but I'm a man. I'm not..." Crowley let out a frustrated breath. "I'm trans."

Anathema blinked. Crowley watched her face in the mirror, trying to gauge her reaction. 

"Well," she said after several seconds, "maybe I should go get my phone and look up some other hairstyles, then. I was going to try to fix this with the assumption you were going for sort of a pixie cut thing." 

Crowley felt a laugh rising up from his chest, and Anathema grinned at him, and then they were both laughing, and hugging, and Crowley felt the huge anxious thing inside him dissolve and vanish. It was all going to be okay. Whatever else happened, he and Anathema, at least, were going to be okay. 

 

Crowley's parents were, predictably, much less understanding. They didn't tell him outright never to come home again, but they did say in no uncertain terms that if going off to university was going to lead him to do nonsense like change his first name to Anthony and start taking hormones, that he was going to have to find alternate methods of paying for his schooling. 

Anathema's parents took him in for Christmas, and then again for the summer holidays, but Anathema was going to school on scholarship and it would have been a stretch for them to have paid for Crowley to continue studying chemistry even if he'd been willing to accept help. So instead, he worked. He pushed harder, stayed up later, wore himself down and picked himself back up again, because he didn't have any other choice. And always, Anathema was there, encouraging and scolding in equal measure, supportive and excited along with him when his voice started changing and the beginnings of stubble appeared on his chin, turning off their flat's wifi to force him to stop work and go to sleep. And he was encouraging and scolding for her, as she struggled through getting a proper autism diagnosis at the suggestion of her parents after her younger brother Adam started having a hard time in school for the same sorts of things she'd always done, as she went through a string of terrible boyfriends before she met someone at their queer club. They just... worked together, on some level that wasn't romantic and wasn't sexual and that Crowley didn't really understand. 

"Why do you think we've stayed such good friends?" He asked her as they lay sprawled out in front of the television in their shared flat, watching some sitcom Crowley couldn't even remember the name of and eating handfuls of popcorn. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, why have we never... drifted apart, even after finishing university. We don't make sense together, you know? Graduate student of chemistry and a... what is it you're doing again? Reading tea leaves for money or something?" 

Anathema threw a pillow at him. 

"Sorry." 

"You'd better be. Witchcraft pays the bills, Crowley." 

"It's just... why don't you move in with your fiance?" Crowley's voice had gotten small and timid, and he stared determinedly at the television screen, not seeing whatever was happening in the sitcom but refusing to look at Anathema, either. 

"Crowley." Anathema said, very gently. "You think I'm going to abandon you, just because I'm marrying Newt?" 

Crowley looked at her. The honest answer was 'yes', because it made sense for her to do so. They'd never dated, they had no real claim on each other. They were just... roommates. Granted, roommates who had seen each other through the rockiest situations of both of their lives, but... just roommates, nonetheless. 

And Crowley had tried to fall in love with her, he really had. Anathema wasn't easy to like, but he _did_ like her and he'd wanted... well, it was selfish to want her all to himself, he figured. 

"You do, don't you?" Anathema said. 

"I..." 

"Crowley." She turned off the television and clambered off the floor to sit next to him on the couch. "D'you know why we're been friends for so long? Because we're both weird. We're weird, weird people and it's a little bit queer and a little bit autistic and a little bit of how our parents raised us and a million other weird little things." She took his hand. "And... and things are going to change, yes. But someday you're going to meet somebody who holds onto you just as hard as I have, and you're going to hold onto them right back, because that's how you are. That's how _we_ are." She chuckled and Crowley saw her wipe at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. "And I just hope he takes care of you, because you need that, I think." 

Crowley blinked at her seemingly deliberate pronoun choice. "'He'?" 

"Yes." Anathema said, with complete confidence. 

"Get this information from some book of prophecy, did you?" Crowley said scathingly, and Anathema squeezed his hand. 

"Might as well have." 

Crowley wanted to argue, to point out he'd tried dating men and he'd tried dating women and nobody had ever really stuck around regardless of gender or sexuality, but she was giving him such a fierce look that he shrugged, grabbed the remote, and turned the show back on. He had Anathema, and he had his graduate program, and for right now that was plenty. 


End file.
